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Straining at gnats

Friday, July 3, 2009

I’ve noted before that California is dysfunctional as a result of the referendum system, which has, courtesy of the right wing, rendered the state ungovernable. The people of the state have voted themselves tax decreases, spending increases, and governmental paralysis, bringing themselves to their present sorry state.

To top it all off, they have a governor of the Jodi Rell school, grandstanding while the state falls apart around him. California is paying its bills with warrants, andwhat is Schwarzenegger demanding as his price to sign a budget:

Among the changes Mr. Schwarzenegger insists be included in a budget agreement are the fingerprinting of recipients of certain state services for the poor and infirm, tighter checks on the job status of those who receive welfare benefits and changes to the state pension program.

He’s got a $27 billion dollar budget deficit, and he’s worrying about things that, agree with him or not, are of negligible importance.

Again, it’s curious that the Times article makes only glancing reference to the fact that California’s problems are largely self inflicted, even taking into account the bad economic times. The current crisis merely accelerated an inevitable outcome.


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Access for sale here too

Thursday, July 2, 2009

If the Washington Post can do it, so can we!

For $20.00, The Groton Democratic Town Committee is offering lobbyists and association executives off the record, non-confrontational access to “those powerful few” — Chris Dodd.. maybe Joe Courtney, important members of the Town Council, Board of Ed, and RTM, powerful Town Committee members (some that head up committees), and an influential local blogger (well, local anyway).

Remember, “an evening with the right people can alter the debate”. Well, in this case it’s an afternoon with the right people, but the same principal applies. Imagine the return you can get on that paltry investment by being in the same room as Chris Dodd, eating cheese and crackers within spitting distance of several members of the RTM, all the time currying favor with the local blogosphere.

Of course, it’s up to you to find a debate that you want to alter. And good luck finding anyone who’ll talk to you who can alter it for you, or (in some cases) even understand it. But at these prices, we’re a steal (is that a bad choice of words?). We’re charging less than .08% of the Post’s lowest price. For that kind of bargain, you can’t afford not to go. Remember, we’ve been out of power for a little less than thirty years. That can’t go on forever, and we’ll remember our friends when the time comes.

So lobbyists and execs, mark your calendars. On July 25th at 4:00 PM, $20.00 gets you into the Mystic Marriott to see Chris Dodd, and meet the movers and shakers of Groton. Anyone who buys $5.00 or more worth of raffle tickets gets favorable mention in this blog, which is read by literally tens of people.

Oops, partial retraction: Unfortunately I have been informed that, in at attempt to “tone up” this event, a raffle will not be held at this particular fundraiser. Interested parties may make application to me directly. I’ll likely be at the front door, selling tickets.

UPDATE: Partial retraction of the partial retraction: There will be a cash raffle. We will be toned up, but not that far up.


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In Brief, an unnecessary war from any point of view

Thursday, July 2, 2009

This is the entire text of a “News in Brief” from this morning’s Day, which in turn is taken from a longer article in the Washington Post:

Saddam Hussein told an FBI interviewer before he was hanged that he allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction because he was worried about appearing weak to Iran, according to declassified accounts of the interviews released yesterday. The former Iraqi president also denounced Osama bin Laden as “a zealot” and said he had no dealings with al-Qaeda.

Hussein, in fact, said he felt so vulnerable to the perceived threat from “fanatic” leaders in Tehran that he would have been prepared to seek a “security agreement with the United States to protect [Iraq] from threats in the region.”

Those two paragraphs confirm every argument we war opponents made both before and after the war. This will be ignored, or dismissed as lies from the evil Saddam, but in fact it’s consistent with what the government was told by reliable sources even before the war.

Doesn’t it seem strange that this confirmation that our own “leaders” are war criminals only merits inclusion in the “News in Brief” section.


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Consumer protection

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

If the description in the Times of the proposed consumer protection agency is accurate, then the Obama Treasury Department deserved a rousing two and a half cheers. The agency would be charged first and foremost with protecting consumers. Right now, the various laws that are designed to protect consumers are administered or enforced by agencies for whom the interests of consumers are, at best, of secondary importance.

The banks are squealing in outrage. Among other hilarious claims, they are saying that the agency might stifle innovation, by which they must mean all those cutting edge methods they’ve developed for systematically screwing their customers. Wouldn’t we all love to meet the innovator who had the bright idea of the cross-default clause, certainly something every consumer was clamoring to have. Liar’s loans are apparently another innovation we just can’t do without.

The plan is half a cheer short because, unless there’s something the Times hasn’t reported, the statute relies mainly on the new agency to determine what is or isn’t kosher so far as consumer lending and credit cards are concerned. That’s all well and good when the folks in charge of the agency actually believe in its purpose, but what happens when that’s not the case. Consider the fact, as Josh Marshall has reported, that the Republicans have systematically appointed people to the Federal Elections Commission who do not believe in enforcing the laws they are supposed to enforce. There are certain practices that should simply be banned outright. Giving the agency the power to make these policy decisions is also giving the agency the power to do nothing; which is exactly what any agency dominated by Republican appointees will do.

Another obvious problem is that, while this is a good step, it is not being matched by effective regulation of the financial instruments that the banks used to lay the country low. Sure, it might be harder to pull off another sub-prime scam, but if there is no regulation of dangerous financial instruments, such as credit default swaps, then the banks will just find another sector in which to spread their poison.

Still the bill is a step forward. It will now be interesting to see if Congress once again sides with the banks that, by all rights, we taxpayers should own, or with consumers. If the pattern holds you will hear support for the bill at first, and then the “moderates” will start spreading doubts, as the banks use our money to lobby against our interests.


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It’s that time again

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Yes, the first Thursday of the month is arriving right on time. Come one, come all to the Southeastern Connecticut Drinking Liberally, at the Bulkeley House, Bank Street, New London, starting at 6:30. We will all lift at least one glass to Al Franken, and maybe another in memory of Atul’s hair, most of which is no more.


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The Deluge cometh

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

As I made my way home today I noticed that Poquonnock Plains Park was flooded, and it appeared that the sidewalk over Fort Hill Brook, was washed out. When I arrived home it was fairly clear that something rather extraordinary had happened.

I had been aware that it was raining during the day, but apparently the rain was intense in our particular area. Normally Route 117 near the library is the first street in the area to flood, but it was dry as a bone when I got home from work. Not so our road, where the floodwaters, which had covered the road (you could see that they had risen several inches above the road surface by the detritus they left behind) were ever so slowly receding back towards the brook across the street.

It’s hard to capture the magnitude of the flooding, but you get an idea from this picture, taken several hours after the flooding crested. That driveway, obviously is normally dry, as is the flooded lawn. It’s been flooded there before, but never so deep as this. The dirt on the road was left there by the water. The road surface is several feet higher than the water level in the picture, so the flooding was fairly mammoth; dwarfing anything that’s happened on the street since I moved there, and that includes hurricanes.

One of my neighbors told me that we received over four inches of rain, as opposed to a little over an inch just about everywhere else. I didn’t know that intense rainfall could be so localized. As I write, however, it’s been over six hours since it rained. Thankfully, the weather forecast calls for the drought to end tomorrow, and to end again the day after that.


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Per curiam

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

The Minnesota Supreme Court finally ruled in Al Franken’s favor. It was a per curiam decision. Per curiam means”by the court”. Per curiam decisions are often used in cases where the court feels the case is so bogus that a full fledged opinion is not necessary. But they can also be used to emphasize that the court is speaking with one voice, which presumably is what the court intended here.

This situation has now reached the end-game. Will Coleman pack it in, or continue to take one for the team. His political career is already nearly toast. If he wants to run for governor to replace Pawlenty, he really needs to step aside now.


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Sotomayor voted a racist, 5 to 4

Monday, June 29, 2009

My mind is boggled.

The Supreme Court has overruled a case in which Judge Sotomayor participated, which proves that she is a racist. That, according to Limbaugh, et. al. Much of the media duly repeats that the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Ricci case somehow proves something about her, as a person, a judge, or both.
Of course the Supreme Court ruled against her position, despite the fact that it was well grounded in precedent. Only the Supreme Court has the right to reverse otherwise binding precedent. It was a given that they’d do so in this case. This court knows of no minority group more victimized than white men. And isn’t it odd how it’s now perfectly okay to call someone a racist on the flimsiest evidence if their alleged bias is against white men, but it’s considered unseemly to make the better founded charge that perhaps the white guys (and one wanna be white guy) in the Supreme Court majority may have a problem in that respect, not to mention the white male Southern Senators who are flinging the charge at Sotomayor.
It would have been far more disturbing if she’d sided with the Supreme Court majority view. We didn’t elect Obama to appoint judges that think like Roberts, Scalia, Alito and Thomas. Thankfully, it looks like he hasn’t. It’s now incumbent on Pat Leahy to tell those white Southerners where they can go with their demands for more time to smear her.
Query, suppose the court had voted 5-4 to uphold Sotomayor. Would her detractors be telling us they had her all wrong and she isn’t a racist? Not likely.


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Yet another book report

Monday, June 29, 2009

I just finished Dean Baker’s Plunder and Blunder, The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy.

Baker is one of those economists who saw the bubble coming. He was therefore ignored at the time and continues to be ignored, much like those of us who saw the Iraq debacle coming were ignored then, and are ignored now. Nothing gets you more ignored in the halls of power than being right, particularly if what you are saying make rich and powerful people uncomfortable.

The book is short (145 pages) and eminently readable. There is no jargon. You needn’t have taken even Economics 101 to understand it.

What’s done is done, so while it’s important to understand what happened in the past, it’s more important to learn from the past and try to insure that dismal history doesn’t repeat itself. Baker has some prescriptions for avoiding a repetition of the current mess. Some are so obvious that only a Congressman or a banker could disagree. Unfortunately, Congressmen and Bankers make the laws, so most of Baker’s prescriptions have been ignored.

One of the factors leading to the recent crash is the built in conflicts of interest that affect the system. For instance, the appraisers hired by lenders to appraise property are supposed to give honest appraisals, but they quickly got the message that the lenders wanted anything but honest appraisals. Since the lenders were paying for their services, the lenders got what they wanted: dishonest appraisals. LIkewise auditors quickly learned that they would not be re-hired if they produced honest audits, so they didn’t. Baker suggests a neat structural solution. Auditors, appraisers, and other experts that are used to certify financial matters should be assigned by an independent body. The banks would pay the board for the appraisal, but the appraiser would be chosen by the board, not the bank.

Same with auditors, same with the bond rating agencies.

Unfortunately, the recently announced Obama plan does nothing about these built in conflicts. It’s a sad fact that Obama has already allowed the window of opportunity for meaningful financial reform to close. Once again, the folks that didn’t see it coming, or who profited immensely from inflicting this disaster upon us, have an outsized voice in crafting a response. People like Baker are being ignored once again.

If you’re interested in getting an account of what happened and why, from a guy who saw it coming, you can’t do better than this little book.


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There are aliens among us

Monday, June 29, 2009

I think, perhaps, that I am beginning to understand the fundamentalist fear that gay marriages will somehow destroy their own.

A few days ago I pondered Jenny Sanford’s odd declaration that marriage is an enduring love is primarily an act of will. Apparently, this attitude is ingrained in the fundamentalist creed, at least the fundamentalist flavor the Sanfords prefer. Consider this statement from Sanford spiritual adviser, Warren “Cubby” Culbertson:

Culbertson also thinks that the only thing holding his friends’ marriage together right now is “their vow to God.”

“Because it’s not feelings _ it’s not emotions,” Culbertson said, the smile fading from his tanned face. “For most Christians, at some point in your marriage, if you’re married long enough, you do it because that’s what we’re called to do _ out of obedience instead of out of passion. And I think that’s where Mark and Jenny are right now.”

Now, I understand that passion only lasts so long. After a while, as Hamlet said, “the hey-day in the blood is tame”. But the dichotomy here seems a bit strange. Christians gets married out of passion, but stay married only in obedience to God. Apparently “most Christians” (or at least their spiritual advisers) are unaware that a relationship between two people can be sustained by more than sex and, to the point, more than mere obedience.

At bottom this is yet another illustration of the profound contempt in which “Christians” hold women, for the unspoken premise is that men are bound to stray once their women no longer arouse unbridled passion. They can’t conceive that a woman can be anything but an object of sexual desire; once that “passion” is gone, she’s just a ball and chain.

It must make “most Christian” marriages awful fragile, more like a chore than a rewarding experience. All those Christian men, holding on to their marriages by the tips of their fingers, the strength of their will, and their fear of the Lord. It still doesn’t provide a logical explanation for why they consider gay marriage a threat to the institution of marriage, but maybe it explains their emotional reaction. Anything that calls their god-centric view of marriage into question undermines their ability to keep God’s commandments, and stay with the wives with whom they have no other bond than mutual fear of God’s wrath.


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